


Now Here

by Naomida



Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [12]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 02:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17071487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naomida/pseuds/Naomida
Summary: Khadgar was surprisingly tall for a human. He was just a little taller than him, which meant that Draerin had to slightly crane his neck to look into his eyes, and now that he was standing right in front of him, Draerin could feel the raw power thundering right beneath his skin, close enough to stir Draerin’s own arcane. It was a little unsettling, to feel this electricity so well contained into someone who looked so unassuming.





	Now Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoseNitemare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseNitemare/gifts).



> Literally a year ago RoseNitemare asked me if I was ever going to write a Khadgar/OC story. There it is.

Draerin hadn’t really treated Lidya’s letter as something urgent when he had received it. Aethas had already taken three weeks to give it to him because he had, in his own words, “more important things to do than deliver mail, sir”. It hadn’t mattered much, because although the letter had been an excellent surprise, the content of it had made him feel like the bottom of his stomach was giving out.

Lidya had this habit of caring slightly too much and always putting herself in impossible situations. The last time they had seen each other, she had been completely broken by the fact that her lover had died, like Draerin had told her he would. It hadn’t been hard to smell the bad idea from miles away when she had announced that she was leaving for Outland with her two new friends, but she hadn’t understood the point he had tried to make at the time – that it was a terrible idea to go there because it was too dangerous for everyone, not just for her. She had gone anyway, and had predictably gotten her hopes crushed and her heart broken.

They didn’t talk at all nowadays, both too busy doing what they needed to do for the good of their people, but Draerin was enough in touch with his feelings to admit that he often thought and worried about her.

His ward was brilliant, but faction leaders tended to take advantage of it by using her to fix every problem and seeing her like she had been when she had come back from Outland was the very last thing he wanted.

So, when he had received the letter, and after reading it four times in a row, just to be sure he didn’t miss anything, he had decided to pen her a reply.

It had taken him a while to put some words on paper, and he was far from finished when, several weeks later, news about her whereabouts reached his ears.

He didn’t even think about what he was doing and what was happening. One second he was standing in the middle of a room in Silvermoon, listening to an Apprentice report that “Archmage Lidya has disappeared. We think that she might be a prisoner of the Legion”, and the next he was meeting Lor’themar’s eye and teleporting away.

His Regent Lord would be pissed, but not as pissed as he would if the idiots of the Kirin Tor let Lidya die and Draerin started raging his fury down on them.

And that was how, after spending close to a decade outside of this cursed city, Draerin arrived in the middle of Dalaran in the middle of the night.

He waited for the guards to come to him, glaring at anyone who got too close, and hoped for everyone’s own good that they wouldn’t keep him too busy with nonsense so he had time to help Lidya.

  


  


***

  


  


It took two hours before Draerin was finally escorted out of a cell and into a room in the Violet Citadel.

The room was, predictably, full to the brim with guards, and one archmage that he’d never had the pleasure to meet but had already heard so much about.

“Archmage,” he said as he stepped to the middle of the room and Archmage Khadgar just looking him up and down, surprise in his eyes.

“Archmage,” replied the human, eyes snapping back to Draerin’s face, which was strange but he had heard some of the rumors going around about him and could understand that someone would be surprised a monster such as him would look so normal. “I uh… you shouldn’t be here.”

Draerin raised an eyebrow and kept quiet.

Khadgar cleared his throat. “What I mean is that you’ve been barred entry of the city.”

“I am well aware of that.”

Khadgar frowned slightly, looking like he had just bit into a lemon, and sent a quick look around the room at the guards.

“I suppose you are here for a reason.”

“A really good one,” he agreed, taking one step closer to the man and watching with some satisfaction as he seemed to lose all calm and got red in the cheeks. “It has come to my attention that Lidya was taken prisoner.”

All color abruptly left Khadgar’s face and Draerin took another step to him, pretending he couldn’t see all the guards get into a fighting stance. “I don’t know what happened and who’s to blame, but there is no way I’m letting those bastards get her while I breathe.”

Khadgar was surprisingly tall for a human. He was just a little taller than him, which meant that Draerin had to slightly crane his neck to look into his eyes, and now that he was standing right in front of him, Draerin could feel the raw power thundering right beneath his skin, close enough to stir Draerin’s own arcane. It was a little unsettling, to feel this electricity so well contained into someone who looked so unassuming, but he had a clear goal in mind and could ponder over the Guardian and his mysteries later.

“She’s told me about you,” murmured Khadgar after a moment, clear blue eyes looking sincere when they met Draerin’s, “I know that the two of you are very close.”

“Good.”

“I can’t promise that I can help your case though. I know that I can trust your intentions if Lidya trusts you, but the decision to allow you back into the city doesn’t exclusively fall on me.”

“I understand,” he nodded, “and I’m giving you two days.”

Khadgar’s mouth twisted into an amused smile as he nodded.

“Thank you, Archmage. And I’ll keep you updated if we have any news on the situation.”

“Thank you,” he replied with a nod, before letting two guards escort him back to the cell.

  


  


***

  


  


“We found her,” announced Khadgar in a muted tone. He was sitting on the lone stool in Draerin’s cell while the elf was on the bed, back straight and hands in fists against his pants.

Considering Khadgar’s face, Lidya was either dead or in very bad shape.

“Is she alive?”

“Yes, but heavily wounded and weak. She’s with the healers right now, but she’ll survive.”

Draerin closed his eyes against the sudden and choking wave of relief that took over him.

It was funny, how he hadn’t been scared for her when she had had to face off Deathwing or the worst Warchief of the history but the simple thought of her being a prisoner of the Legion was sending him in a panic.

“The Six didn’t have time to talk about your case, and although you told me two days, I’m going to have to ask you to wait a little more.”

“As long as Lidya is okay, it doesn’t matter much,” he replied with a dismissive hand gesture.

Khadgar sent him a strange, unreadable look, but Draerin was too relieved to care or analyze it.

  


  


***

  


  


It took two more days before Khadgar visited him again, bringing in a tray of cinnamon rolls and tea, sitting down on the stool again and starting to talk about Lidya. Draerin first took it as a sign of politeness, but Khadgar stayed when he was finished talking about her current whereabouts and started asking questions about their shared past, and just for a moment Draerin considered being rude and setting him on fire.

The thought flew out of his mind when he realized how intensely Khadgar was looking at him, how his eyes kept drifting down to his mouth, how shy his smiles and small laughs were.

 _He likes me_ , he realized, looking at the human like it was the first time he was seeing him.

Draerin didn’t know a lot about him except for what the rumors said. Lidya had met him in Outland but hadn’t really hit it off with him then. _H_ _e just looked old and spent most of his time with the Naa’ru_ , she had said when Draerin had pestered her about it. She had left more to guess in her letter — they were close now, after spending so much time saving each other on Draenor — but not nearly enough for Draerin to be in any way interested in the human.

At least until now, because the last time someone had tried to be discreet about their crush on him was… well, never, really.

Draerin was all for proper courting but didn’t really have the patience for it, which was probably a bad sign considering how old he was and how he should have learned that by now.

Still. His interest was suddenly peaked, and he watched as Khadgar went on speaking, having no idea that Draerin was totally lost in his thoughts.

Khadgar looked a lot older than he actually was, Draerin knew that, and while he had spent most of his life looking down on humans, he had to admit that some of them looked positively good — and Khadgar was one of those humans. He also was competent and powerful, which were truly the only two qualities Draerin looked for in a bed partner, but something about the human’s shy gaze and big smile told him that he wasn’t here purely out of lust.

So, a real, actual crush then.

Draerin looked away from his tiny smile — which, okay, was slightly adorable — to look up into his eyes for possibly the first time, breath catching.

The blue of a mana pool. The blue of the Quel’danas sun just before dusk. The blue of a good frozen orb. The blue of his mother’s favorite pillow — the one that she only got out when they received people for dinner.

 _The blue of love_ , supplied his brain, and Draerin almost scoffed because beautiful eyes didn’t equal that by a _very_ large margin, but he couldn’t really lie to himself as his heartbeat picked up a little when Khadgar gazed questioningly at him.

“What do you think?”

Draerin blinked. He had barely registered what the human had been saying about arcane flux and the shape of the flow of magic going through Dalaran’s sewers, and to be entirely honest he didn’t care about that one bit — and Khadgar didn’t look like he cared either, and Draerin suspected that he was just looking for an excuse to stay.

Well, Draerin was never one to play it slow and discreet.

“How about you get yourself a cup of tea too?” he asked, lips pulling up into a smile despite himself when Khadgar blinked down at the cup Draerin was holding before blinking back up at him.

“Tea?”

“Yes,” he replied, taking his first small sip at the too sweet tea and smiling frankly this time, “unless you have to be somewhere else, of course.”

“Oh no,” replied Khadgar, shaking his head and laughing nervously as he waved his hand and an empty cup appeared on the tray, “thank you for inviting me to stay.”

“Thank you for staying,” replied the elf, trying for his most seductive smile and almost regretting it when Khadgar blushed and looked away shyly, making his heart melt a little.

  


  


***

  


  


A week later, and Draerin was still a sort of prisoner in Dalaran, receiving visits from Khadgar everyday.

If he was being honest, he would have had sex with Khadgar after only the third visit, had their situations been different — but he didn’t want him to think that he was trading his freedom for sex — especially since the magical dampening protections in his cell had gone from practically airtight to virtually inexistent after that time with the cup of tea. He could have teleported away at any time, but the look of delighted surprise on Khadgar’s face every time he visited and found him there was making it worth it.

Draerin didn’t have all the time in the world, however.

“I want to see her,” he announced that afternoon, biting into one of the pastries that Khadgar had brought — something so _creamy_ he couldn’t help but grunt in please, which brought color to the human’s face.

“I understand, and I’m doing all that I can. It’s mostly paperwork at this point, since no one really has anything against you in the Council, especially considering your relationship with Lidya. I’m doing my best though, I promise,” he said, looking deeply into Draerin’s eyes, reaching for his hand but stopping before he could hold it, fingers brushing against the back of Draerin’s hand instead.

Draerin couldn’t really resist that, so he put down his pastry, reaching to cup Khadgar’s face between his hands, and kissed him like he meant it.

Khadgar grunted against his lips, reaching up too, fingers curling into his hair — too tight, but Draerin actually liked it and simply blinked the tray standing between them away, sliding closer to the other archmage, thanking the Light that Khadgar had sat down on the bed with him instead of choosing the stupid stool.

“We shouldn’t,” murmured Khadgar against his mouth, still pulling him closer, closer, until Draerin was forced to straddle his lap.

“I can stop if you want,” replied the elf, leaning back to look at him with hooded eyes, lightly biting at his lower lip, entirely aware that he looked too good to resist — or so he had been told.

Khadgar, thankfully, seemed to like it because he started kissing him again instead of talking more.

  


  


***

  


  


Naked and holding Khadgar against his chest, the human panting against his skin, moaning those soft little noises that sounded too fragile in the silent room, Draerin felt something grow in his chest, something soft and slightly choking but that felt warm and good, and he closed his eyes and gave harder hip thrusts instead of thinking about what it meant.

What were the chances that this kind and powerful human was his mate, after all ?

  


  


***

  


  


Draerin woke up alone in his bed, hair tangled and shoulders still stinging a little where Khadgar had accidentally scratched him during the night. For a second, a strange knot appeared in his throat, and he gritted his teeth when something hot started stinging behind his eyes.

Khadgar was gone, so what? He was too old for disappointment, or any kind of foolish feelings — like hurt and shame.

He sat down in his bed, running his fingers through his hair trying to tame it, and his eyes fell on the pile of neatly folded clothes on the stool and the small piece of parchment perched on it.

“ _Sorry I had to run,_ ” read the scratchy and too small writing, “ _I look forward to the next time though. Yours, Khadgar_.”

Draerin spent half a minute smiling down at it, that warm choking feeling back in his chest, before he got up, deciding that he was done playing games. He’d go take a shower and visit Lidya. They had much to talk about now that he was in a good mood.

  


  


***

  


  


For a long while, Draerin tried to forget all about Khadgar. Between the fight against the Legion and reuniting with Lidya — and making sure she didn’t die — he had too much on his mind for any archmage with stupid eyes and smiles – and Khadgar seemed to be in a similar situation since they never really crossed path again.

At least until his Lidya — bright and amazing but way too stubborn for her own good — _did_ die and the entire Tirisgarde almost destroyed Dalaran in its fury.

Draerin was too shocked to do much yelling or moaning or crying. He just sat down on the first couch he found in the Violet Citadel, and stared straight ahead, seeing in his mind’s eye the first time he had met Lidya, with her big scared eyes, long brown hair and thick accent. She had met his eyes despite her fear, despite the fact that he was arguing in Thalassian with an archmage that he didn’t need another stupid kid to follow him around and get scared at the first explosion.

Draerin had gone through his fair share of mentee, developing a reputation of being the hardest archmage to work with, and all those who had taken that as a challenge had failed.

Lidya had simply stared at him, and he had thought that she was one of those idiots who had ended up here by sheer luck, accidentally playing too close to the fireplace and their parents imagining that they suddenly were mages.

He had been wrong — _so, so wrong_ — and had only realized that the first time she had almost destroyed the trainees quarters. Draerin had never realized all the bullying going on there, at the time, and when a crying Lidya, cradling her burnt hand to her chest, had finally gotten every off of her chest — and more, but Draerin had deserved the insults and had liked that she wasn’t afraid of him — he had made sure to put the fear of old gods in those stupid trainees before teaching Lidya his language and vowing to himself that he’d help her make a name for herself.

He had been right to follow his instincts, because not only was she brilliant, she also was the only person on this world to be loyal enough to lie so he didn’t get a death sentence.

She had thrown her life away like that for him, getting expelled from the Kirin Tor when she could have traded a juicy promotion to conjurer for his life.

And she had died.

Granted, not for long, thanks to ancient and mysterious magic, but _still_. His one and only trainee, the only student he had ever loved and respected, dead like that.

He knew, logically, that considering what she did for a living she could die any second of any day, but he knew she was too good for that — but the Legion… well, it was another story.

“Archmage,” breathed someone to his left, and Draerin looked up at Khadgar, surprised to see him pale like death and looking shocked — and shaking, too.

“Archmage,” he replied, scooting to the side of the couch to make some space for him, and Khadgar sat down, tense and starting to blink tears away from his eyes.

“She’s…”

“She’ll survive,” said Draerin, because he really didn’t want to start bawling his eyes out in the middle of a corridor and knew that he would if Khadgar started to cry. “She always does. She’s too strong-willed to die like that.”

“I can’t live with myself if she dies. She’s here because of me.”

Draerin scoffed at this, receiving a confused look. “If you think she does anything other than whatever she wants to do, you’re dead wrong. Nothing can stop her from going after what she wants, trust me on that.”

Khadgar nodded slightly, eyes roaming over Draerin’s face — who knew exactly what was happening before it really happened, but he was sad and tired and frankly didn’t have any good reason to stop it from happening, so he didn’t.

He met Khadgar halfway, tasting the electric taste of arcane on his tongue when he licked at the human’s lower lip, and he shuddered as Khadgar curled tight fingers in his hair, holding him in place as Draerin deepened the kiss.

Khadgar grunted when Draerin lightly bit at his lips, and the sound went straight to the elf’s cock — with a slight detour to his heart, because apparently Draerin never learned his lesson and was foolish enough to still feel things for him that didn’t all have to do with what was hanging between his legs.

He grunted again when Draerin cupped his face and straddled him in one graceful movement, and just for a second, Draerin almost convinced himself that sitting on his lap and kissing him like that in a corridor was a good idea.

The second passed, and he leaned back, unable to stop himself from smiling when Khadgar chased after him and sent him a confused look when Draerin leaned farther away.

“Is it really wise to kiss like that in such a public place?” he asked, his voice too husky from just a kiss, but Khadgar’s fingers were still tangled in his hair and Draerin was sitting on him already half-hard, so he didn’t think he had much dignity to lose.

“Maybe not,” replied Khadgar, looking at him with those deep blue eyes, the color of Eversong Woods’ sky, the color of mana pools, the color that made his heart skip a beat. The archmage wet his lips before speaking again, “I want to, though.”

“Want to what?”

“Kiss you,” he replied, too earnest, face open, and Draerin decided in this moment that he was way too old to be cautious anyway.

So he leaned down and kissed Khadgar again, giving him his best shot at an open-mouthed kiss, his own fingers curling into short gray hair while Khadgar brought an arm around his waist and pulled him closer, half-hard too under Draerin’s weight.

  


  


***

  


  


Making out in the middle of the mages’ home was all good and fun, but that wasn’t enough for Draerin, who went to go see Lidya as soon as he could — meaning as soon as King Wrynn let anyone see her, which meant never, but he was smart and only let him in the infirmary room.

Draerin’s eyes immediately fell on Lidya’s pale face. They hadn’t changed her — the healers were probably just taking a small break before going back in — and she had blood everywhere, _her own_ , and it chilled Draerin’s blood.

“It’s a miracle she managed to get to Delivrance Point,” said Varian behind him, sounding like he had been crying pretty heavily — although his puffy red eyes had already given him away — and Draerin quickly reached up to wipe away the tears that had rolled down his cheek before turning around to face him.

“We can’t lose her,” he said. “And I’m not even talking about the Tirisgarde or saving Azeroth. Lidya _cannot_ die.”

Varian nodded.

“I’ll stay with her until she gets out of here, but then I’ll have to go back to my duty.”

It was Draerin’s turn to nod, immediately understanding what he was saying.

“I’ll keep an eye on her after that. She’ll try to go back to adventuring right away, knowing her.” That had Varian snort, and for a second Draerin watched as the king’s eyes drifted to Lidya and his entire body relaxed, grew softer, making him look that much less threatening.

It was fun, how Lidya seemed to collect badasses and turn them into softies. He was pretty sure he was the first badass to have fallen for that.

“I’ll pick up our training,” he added when it was clear that Varian wouldn’t talk more, “I’ll make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

Varian nodded without looking away from her, which satisfied something hidden deeply in Draerin’s chest — that thing that constantly worried about Lidya and hoped and wished for the very best for her — and the elf left the room at that with a soft kiss against Lidya’s forehead.

  


  


***

  


  


“I can’t believe you have a crush on him,” said Lidya, a week later.

There was sweat on her forehead and she was frowning deeply, holding a blizzard up for as long as possible — she was at four minutes for now, and Draerin was pretty impressed with her.

“It’s not a crush, I’m no child,” he replied, raising the temperature around them and watching her match it by dropping hers, managing to keep the same intensity for her blizzard.

“Is it love then?”

Draerin thought about that night after she had died, when Khadgar had teleported them away to his chambers, they had both gotten the other naked and had had the most vanilla sex Draerin had had in a long time.

It had also been the best, because for some reason Khadgar panting against his sweaty skin and gripping whatever bit of skin he could to pull him closer, closer, always close, had been a huge turn on.

Draerin had come twice that night, before giving Khadgar a blowjob so intense, even the elf had felt it in his toes when he came.

They hadn’t talked since then, hadn’t even seen each other, since Khadgar was busy planning the attack on the Tomb of Sargeras and Draerin was busy keeping an eye on Lidya and training her, but there wasn’t a minute when Draerin hadn’t been thinking about him.

“It might not be love yet,” he replied, raising the temperature again and watching as Lidya smiled despite the obvious effort she was making to follow. “Use that damn staff of yours, Lidya,” he said in Thalassian, before picking up in Common, “but it might turn into that pretty soon.”

“I can’t believe someone managed to snatch Khadgar. I thought he only loved people way out of his league who didn’t look at us little people.”

“I don’t,” he replied, “and I’m still not sure we even play the same sport, but he’s nice, powerful and knows how to suck a dick like a champion.”

Lidya grimaced at that.

“I didn’t need to know that, but good to know.”

Draerin chuckled, and raised the temperature again, just to push her to her limits, satisfied when she followed after some struggle.

“I’m just glad you’re falling for him,” she said after a small silence, sweating a lot now but her blizzard still holding, “you’d be good together. You both like to pretend like you don’t need anyone, but I know the truth, and you’re a seriously good match. I should have actually thought about it before, you’d already be engaged by now.”

Draerin rolled his eyes and raised his temperature again, smiling when Lidya’s staff on her back pulsed and the blizzard held.

  


  


***

  


  


Someone knocked on Draerin’s door that night, and he couldn’t say that he was surprised when he found an exhausted archmage standing there, Atiesh in hand and what looked like demon blood in his hair.

He opened the door to him without a word and followed him to his private bathroom, shedding his clothes too when Khadgar did and following him into the large shower.

They didn’t exchange a word, but Khadgar let Draerin shampoo his hair and wash his back and massage his shoulders while he was rinsing.

They got out of the bathroom after drying themselves and Khadgar gently combing Draerin’s hair, and went to bed naked, facing each other, sharing one of the big pillows Draerin had brought from Silvermoon, their legs tangled and arms wrapped aroung each other.

“We’re almost ready,” murmured Khadgar after a while.

Draerin didn’t say anything, he simply kissed him until the archmage was finally relaxed, and once it was done he took him in his arms and closed his eyes, wondering how the fel he had gotten himself tangled up with so many people risking their life to stop the Legion.

  


  


***

  


  


Another three weeks and a half, and Draerin found himself standing in front of the Tomb, tying his hair into a tight bun.

He could feel Khadgar’s eyes on his face from where he was standing with Illidan and Velen, and the elf took care to not glance at him.

Lidya, who was standing with him with that Illidari best friend of hers, had somehow convinced him to participate in the assault too, arguing that an archmage of his magnitude was an asset they couldn’t leave in Dalaran and that having him with her would make her feel better, more confident in her own powers, would be added moral support, that he’d be able to keep an eye on Khadgar too — and Draerin had stopped her there, sighing that he would come but that this last argument was bullshit.

So, there he was, with his hair finally up and out of his face. He accepted a potion that Lidya handed him, drinking it all up in one go, before finally not resisting anymore and looking over at Khadgar, meeting his blue eyes.

Mana pools. The color of frozen orbs. The beautiful sky back home.

The color of love.

He smiled, Khadgar smiled back, and they both looked away.

The smile stayed firmly in place on his face for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the proof that leaving me comments will get me to do whatever you want me to do.
> 
> The next one shot (which I was supposed to post instead of this one but I had to finish this one first for chronological reasons) is already finished and I promise it's going to be ALL about Lidya ;)


End file.
